Karl McCollester (00:02.284)
Welcome to Mighty Municipalities, the podcast about small municipalities and how they can punch above their weight. I'm your host, Karl McCollester and along with my co-host Mark Partin and our guests, we take you through the highs and lows of working in a small municipality. Whether it's the hardship and frustration that is holding you back or the progress and winds that are propelling you forward, we're here to share the lessons learned and give you strategies to help improve your community. Mark, how is your day going?

Mark Partin (00:28.785)
It is going well so far. it's a beautiful Saturday here and we had some storms last night but the sun's out today and no complaints at all from me.

Karl McCollester (00:38.252)
Yeah, about as cool as it will get at the end of June in South Carolina. Yes, right. Yes. Until mid September, early end of September. So yeah, so it's been good. So you know, the given you know, the the weather, one of the things we wanted to talk through was the was just that. how

Mark Partin (00:40.873)
That's right. For a couple more months at least, yes. Yes. That's right, yeah.

Karl McCollester (01:04.492)
Both in the south and the north, obviously heat is becoming more and more n of an issue and so we've been doing some research on how municipalities have and and brainstorming how municipalities can work to handle that.

Mark Partin (01:20.255)
Yeah, so one of the things, as Karl said, we want to talk about because this is relevant this time of year, particularly in our part of the world, is heat and the effect it has on our communities, both large and small, but we're you know mostly talking about smaller municipalities in the case of this podcast. But it does have an effect on us and we want to talk about some reasons why as well as some things that we can do

not just as municipalities but as individuals. So Karl, can you tell us a little bit about why you think this is important and you know maybe some negative effects you've either experienced or heard about as you go around dealing with different clients you have.

Karl McCollester (02:08.6)
Sure. Yeah, it's one of those ones that is especially for us in the south who are kind of used to the this temperature and this humidity, that's I think sneaks up a a lot on a lot of us. But especially if you look at in our towns where we have, you know

poor populations where the you know they are maybe they don't have air conditioning or where the air conditioning is unreliable, which is certainly the case for a lot of buildings out there built in the fifties, sixties, seventies that maybe you know last had an upfit in the eighties and still don't have good insulation. the

challenges for a lot of folks if you're coming home at night and then you're battling, you know, to keep your house or sleeping in, you know, something in you know a high humidity you know

place where you know you're you're in the 80s, a lot of people, you know, your your day-to-day ability to recover from work suffers in high heat situations, especially if you're continuously under heat, you know, your ability to be able to, you know, think quickly diminishes. I know, you know, a lot of times, you know, people have you know have those kind of issues just, you know, even in, you know, offices. You know, if we if you think about where you've had it your office where the power has gone out for three hours in the middle of summer.

and how difficult it gets. Or if you think about the movies in the 50s where everybody's kind of like you know, barely staying awake with the fans going, you know, and the windows all open trying to get any little bit of breeze, you know, you can certainly see where heat not only in the sense of an emergency, either you know, from you know, we have these you know 105, 110 degree days, you know, there's these emergency circumstances where our systems just aren't really meant to deal with it. but even then.

Mark Partin (03:36.404)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (03:59.521)
than you know the day-to-day helping people and helping your community and focusing on the idea of of and under working on your idea of heat mitigation can really help make your s your municipality more livable, you know continue to make it more usable all your outdoor spaces more usable and lead to a better quality of life.

Mark Partin (04:21.764)
Karl, as you have gone around, particularly North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, you know, a lot of our larger cities, you can see the transformation that has occurred over the last several decades where we have more concrete and hard surfaces and asphalt and so forth. But do you see that in the smaller communities as well?

Karl McCollester (04:37.624)
Mm-hmm.

Karl McCollester (04:44.404)
Yes, a absolutely. The th the thing is right, everybody you know, even the the smallest communities now have the dollar general with the parking. and that you know, that parking area, and those parking areas around our post offices and things like that, especially in a potentially a smaller community, yes you have, you know, more trees on on you know, closer to the center of town potentially as you get into your more rural areas around that. but you still have these high heat zones where

you know, w where the the heat that's being built up because the you know the asphalt is storing more and more heat, certainly affects the people living immediately around those places. and if your park's near that, or again if you have your

if you have this parking lot, you know, n right next to your municipal building, but you have this municipal municipal building from the fifties that, you know, even more importantly hasn't been updated maybe since the eighties. you know

you find that a lot of people you know in these will have these buildings where they just really can't handle that level of heat. and you know the the thing with most the larger municipalities is there's a lot more places where people can go get cool. It's much easier to do that. Whereas in our smallest municipalities, this becomes you know p more of an acute issue where especially on these very hot days, we're with a you know rural population where know the air conditioning again either you know they don't have it at all.

Still in some places and some homes, or it's you know, again, not as effective and efficient because of the housing isn't as modern. you know, y they may have cooling, but that cooling does not work well in 96, 105 degree temperatures. so you know, your your smallest municipalities, it's kind of a a hidden issue where pe you know where everybody knows it, everybody sees it, everybody's you know, you you see so many more people out on the porches to start trying to catch a breeze during the day. but we haven't really

Mark Partin (06:29.908)
Right.

Karl McCollester (06:45.11)
confronted it or done anything to try to figure out exactly what that how that's impacting our citizens.

Mark Partin (06:53.354)
Okay, well, we'll talk about some of the things you can do as a community shortly, but before we get into the response to it, what are some things we can do to help the people now? you know, it's June, getting ready to be July in a couple weeks. The hot hottest part of the summer is probably still ahead of us. So so what are some things that we can do individually and as communities to

help people feel relief acutely. You know, we can talk about the long term solutions later, but acutely what can we do?

Karl McCollester (07:30.551)
Right. Right. So I think the the first kind of important piece or the and really the least expensive piece first is to identify what do you already have? You know, what are your what exists naturally within the community. and so from that standpoint, you know, where are our

cool zones, you know, do we have a a river or a, you know, or a or at least a large stream that potentially goes through a town that naturally cools off an area. and do we have you know do we have a well forested area that happens to maybe maybe be up on a little bit of a hill that catches more of a breeze. So one of the first things we can do is is measure what we have even externally so that we understand what are the places where it makes sense for people to go. And also when we're talking about events and festivals and things like that.

for people to congregate d during the summer that that are both good thing good spots. And then also, you know, what are the conversely, what are the hot spots? What are p places that we should, you know, keep not necessarily keep people away from, but, you know, potentially be more aware of how much time they're spending in those areas. And again, those are the the parking lots, the around manufacturing, you know, around the the

where we have more asphalt out on the

in the space in the urban space or our our downtown space for instance. So and I so from that standpoint, you know, you can just you know lay out a spreadsheet and and actually we'll we'll provide a sample one here as part of the podcast and you can get a thermometer, an ambient therm temperature reader from Amazon for you know twenty or thirty dollars and start mapping where those those places are. So I think the first step is you know understanding what you have

Karl McCollester (09:21.696)
naturally. And then you know, then we can talk about next, you know, what what we can do to then, you know, more acutely make things available for people as they go from there.

Mark Partin (09:32.884)
Okay. what about if you're an organization, nonprofit organization, you know, a business, a a church, what are some ways that they can assist really, you know, fairly easily, but it has a huge impact.

Karl McCollester (09:54.167)
Right. So I think that's where you know and this is both

You can think about this both from a a a daily thing, especially when you're here in the s in in the southern part of the United States, whether that's southeast or southwest, in high heat high heat days, as well as during emergency response, during acutely high days. So here in the south, you know, normally that's we're looking at above a hundred degrees. maybe in the southwest that might be, you know, more above a hundred five. but you know, in in both of those

situations then you know where we're for these people who have a a situation where they cannot cool themselves adequately, where can we send them? And so part of that is walking through and ideally doing this during the spring, but you know, there's no time like the present. You can do this over the course of a couple weeks. Identify, you know, what are the the the churches, the nonprofits, talk with your school or library about, you know, how well they could accomplish

accommodate people in the case of a high heat situation. Can we you know can people come and

sit in your lobby, can they use your internet? and you know, frankly, and having a frank discussion with them of yes, a church may have the space, do they have the cooling? You know, yes they can potentially have a congregation hall that seats a hundred, but if they know really, you know, as soon as they start getting more than 30 congregates there on a Sunday that it it really starts warming up, you don't want to send a hundred people there. And so having those sorts of conversations and identifying exactly what we have.

Mark Partin (11:26.259)
Right.

Karl McCollester (11:31.601)
are these facilities that can you know it's there's only a small space where the people are available or there's you know are there restrooms available for them to use while they're there so they can stay an extended period of time or is this just a a place where they can maybe sit for fifteen minutes and cool off before going on with their day. if there if there's

If they can stay there longer, can they bring their pets? Can they bring their medication? if that medication, you know, there's a lot of seniors who and people with disabilities who need refrigerated medication that they need to take on a daily basis. Is this something they can bring with them? because it's going to be important if they need to stay there or if they can stay there for a few hours. and then you know so taking all that, and again, we've build

A little survey that that you can use to ask these questions and figure out, you know, are these things available? So that you can then ideally put this into a spreadsheet. And then when you see on the news, you know, a high heat event's going to come, it's not just, well, we only have the town hall that we can open up. you know, let's let's figure out we already have a list of people that we can ask

of places that we can figure out what are open and then communicate that to our residents.

Mark Partin (12:51.818)
So this sounds like it would be a good project for I mean it could reside in emergency management, but they have a lot they have to manage. So this sounds like it could be a good project for maybe each church to do for their congregants and maybe another nonprofit or even

Karl McCollester (12:58.732)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Karl McCollester (13:08.43)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (13:12.542)
if you have community colleges or or colleges and universities around, maybe a good graduate project for students to develop a a checklist and and an inventory and even a mapping to go around and identify these people. And of course just like the day old days of neighborhood watches with crime, take care of your neighbors too. You know, particularly if you have some of the vulnerable population Karl mentioned earlier. Just knock on their door and

Karl McCollester (13:36.546)
Yes.

Mark Partin (13:42.596)
Do you have what you need and how can I help you? Or, you know, if your air condition's not broke not working, come to my house and enjoy mine. Yeah. So I I think this is a a good opportunity for people to come together and help each other. Yeah.

Karl McCollester (13:52.118)
Yeah, the

Karl McCollester (13:58.265)
yes. and you know, from that f as as you said, you know, alluded to with the mention of the community colleges or university, this kind of survey, you know, where you're going out and contacting the churches, you know, what a great, you know, thing you can use for an intern you know, you may not have the time internally, but this is a a really impactful thing they can do to, you know, both build contacts within the community, if they're for instance like you know

Mark Partin (14:14.751)
Yeah.

Karl McCollester (14:25.874)
A an up and coming high school student who's active in the community who wants to be more active. What a great way to you know let them gain contacts as well as then start building those communication paths with the schools, with the churches, you know, with your with your other facilities, and and gather that information to you so that when the time comes you can reach out to everybody and say, Okay, hey, we know we're having a, you know.

high heat day this coming Thursday and Friday. you know what do you have do you have any availability that we can you share with our residents so that they know where they go if they need to.

Mark Partin (15:05.02)
Exactly, yeah. So let's shift a little bit away from what individuals can do and and you know, community can do, but now let's talk a little bit about what our governmental units can do. What is it that they practically can do and you know have within their legal scope that they can do as well.

Karl McCollester (15:24.856)
So I think there's you know, it first, you know, obviously in the high heat situation, you know, we're talking about emergency heating. you know, it's being that coordinating body to gather the information. So those are kind of your first steps as far as handling handling those types of responses.

Then from there, you know, once we're, you know, ideally we have some of those mitigating, you know, or response type capabilities in place, you know, then what are the what are the things that we can do long term? So once we've you know kind of identified you know where are hot spots in town, especially if those are spots, you know, near a near a city hall or in a public space, and then we can start talking about things that we can do to to

to mitigate that day-to-day heat. And so then we're talking about some sort of potentially some sort of infrastructure, but it could be very light infrastructure as far as having places where, you know, that are they're well shaded, you know, maybe have a misting station.

where you it makes it more welcoming for people to go. So when they're walking around, maybe they're getting hot, they s they can see a space in town that is is welcoming for them in that summer, which is a hard thing to do here in the South, but but it you know, even you know, even a a a shady spot with a bench and a and a clear breeze, whether that's shade from trees or shade from you know a shade some sort of shade structure, can certainly help.

Mark Partin (16:42.716)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (16:59.852)
give us a give a person a space to recover before they continue on with their day.

Mark Partin (17:05.776)
talk a little bit about you mentioned using existing facilities and structures you need but or that you already have, but talk about maybe the efficiencies and effectiveness of doing just that, you know, because this this doesn't mean you have to do something new and totally different. Yeah.

Karl McCollester (17:26.774)
Right, yes. you know, you most almost every town has some sort of council chamber, right? And so even if it's just opening that up and making that available during during heat days, that's something you know we're we're not spending d any additional money outside of you know cooling the room for with some additional bodies in it. but that is certainly giving people a place to go. you know beyond that

Well let's take a break 'cause I'm not sure where you're trying to have me go. Trying to lean me to. Yeah.

Mark Partin (17:57.899)
well I was just I was just trying to to say

You can do this. You don't have to have a new budget or use stuff like if you build a picnic shelter for picnics, it can also provide shade. So take advantage of what you already have. Just think about using it differently. Yeah.

Karl McCollester (18:08.524)
Right. Right. All right.

Karl McCollester (18:17.078)
Right, right, right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Great. Yeah, so well so yeah, so yeah, t to your yeah, Mark to your point, yeah, not only do you have the buildings, but you have those other facilities that you're building, right? So you know the

Yeah, where the picnic shelter itself has shade, you know, I know you a lot of times in Sumter, you we're purposely putting fans in place in those areas as well, to make sure that air is circulating. So that's a very low cost thing you could be doing. if you already have electricity there for lighting, you could you add in a fan for a relatively relatively small cost and now you have some airflow there as well. So again, it may not help necessarily on the hundred ten degree day, but it certainly helps on a ninety five degree day to have that air flowing.

Mark Partin (19:08.788)
Yes, and this is also a good opportunity if if you have a a landscaping policy or something in your planning documents to you know request more shade tree plantings, not just for beautification purposes, but to provide shade. So, you know, that's a regulatory method you can use to provide some relief to heat, particularly in parking lot areas.

Karl McCollester (19:34.647)
Yes. Yes, right. If your if your municipality has the ability to have any impact on that and it's not where the county's managing all that and you know obviously you have to have that planning infrastructure in place where you've done the comprehensive plan and have those requirements that you've you've put into your ordinances. but assuming you have that, you know, certainly leveraging that. Again, it's not it it is something where as a municipality it's important to realize it is not there just for beautification.

Mark Partin (19:48.564)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (20:04.244)
having those shade trees or you know around these large asphalted areas significantly reduces the impact of that heat buildup because it's it's keeping it from getting to the asphalt. and so that's s both you know saves that saves a lot of impact of that space on the neighboring houses and and the rest of the community as far as how much heat's getting stored there.

Mark Partin (20:28.508)
Yes, so now let's shift to some maybe some examples of some programs that that you're aware of that towns can copy and make their own. Yeah.

Karl McCollester (20:39.672)
Sure. So yeah, there were so and full credit, you know

One of the things that inspired this, GovLove has a pot has their GovLove podcast. And I think it was a year back they had an interview with the city of Tempe, Arizona, talking about what they do as far as heat mitigation. And, you know, while they're a much drier heat than us, they certainly have these same types of issues as we do here in the southeast, as well as the

as well as you know, many more water issues than than we do with trying to use things to keep things cool. So you know so full shout out to them and and their program for what what they're doing. So a lot of a lot of these things come from their

Mark Partin (21:13.471)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (21:24.694)
you know, from from that podcast and and from their representative that spoke there. So a couple of things that they did that I thought was great was first of all they have not only just a general shade tree program, which I'll c circle back to in a second, but then they s they work they have a program to work with their residents and with their businesses to both sponsor and to learn about how to properly care for and to help then provide the materials for them to

plant plant trees and increase shade coverage themselves. So first they're they and they separate out to residential and business, but of course as a small town, this could just be a, you know, a a tree sponsorship program where potentially you're even working with, you know, your local Arbor Day Foundation or something like that to procure the trees and then work with your have your public works folks work with the residents to figure out, you know, what's a good place to to plant this on my property, you know, how not to over or underwater it.

And make sure it gets taken care of during that first year, you know, help them figure out how to stake it for the first year to keep it, you know, from growing straight or sideways and things like that. And and also then, you know, working with those residents and the your your council folks to look at what are the properties that could really use it. you know they're having

plantings and having the right plantings and properly spaced around you know, a person's house who potentially cannot, you know, afford to redo their house completely can still significantly mitigate the the impact of heat, you know, coming on the roof and coming on their walls, and, you know, make that place much more livable in the summer than maybe it is currently. So working with your residents to do that. And again, your really your only cost there is the time and then, you know, getting the trees from

Wherever you're going to get them in again. There are places like the Arbor Day Foundation. I think also South Carolina Forestry has some programs and things like that where they share some of those pieces. So residents, and then same thing with businesses, right? Ideally, you know, they can even you know hopefully help supply some of those things to your residents in the residential program. But you know, being a sponsor of a you know, you have you have that Dollar General, they're on the main road, you know, having them help sponsor.

Karl McCollester (23:45.277)
Or putting some trees and a bench in front of their space. Whether a bus comes there or not, that then just becomes it it makes their business look nicer. So it makes it look more inviting. And it provides a space for those people who are accessing it either via ride share or via via foot or bicycle to have a place to to stop and and you know w wait and rest as they're coming in and out of the store. So it helps them and at the same time.

then again those plantings having that space helps you and helps your residents so that they have places where they can they can potentially stop and and you know rest rest their legs and cool down a little bit on those particularly unbearable days.

Mark Partin (24:30.418)
Yes, and it helps a lot even just to have a few minutes to cool off. So take advantage of those places and opportunities when you have them because you can quickly become overheated and that can be very dangerous. sometimes I think we don't realize how dangerous that can be. Yeah. So Karl has mentioned a few times

Karl McCollester (24:36.588)
Yes. Yeah. And

Mark Partin (24:54.152)
today that you know we have some materials for you and we will on the in the show notes have some downloadable material for you that show some links to some misting and shade construction videos to show you some ways that can be done fairly easily. neighborhood heat survey, town temperature survey, and a cooling center survey worksheet and inventory for you to download and put to use. And you know we encourage you whether you're a municipality or just an

individual download these materials and and see how you can use them in your community to help us deal with the heat because it is summertime, yes.

Karl McCollester (25:32.655)
Right.

It is, it is. And you know, that when Mark was talking about that idea of, hey, you know, you the individuals helping each other, that's where that town you know, the neighborhood heat safety survey comes in. So the idea of you know having those going into the your neighborhoods, talking to people, and you know, when we talked about I identifying the person who potentially needs a tree in their yard, understanding, you know, where are the older residents in your neighborhood. This is a good thing in general for a town to know, but especially during a heat season.

Mark Partin (26:02.996)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (26:04.378)
situation you know, they may only have a window unit and again they may have medication that needs refrigerated, but they have a very old refrigerator. So

During those high heat situations, having that list of people that you know you really need to probably reach out to or you know, it would be great if you can. And so having volunteers help reach out to them and and coordinate those knowing all those things, the w the way you can collect those is by doing that survey and walking around your neighborhood and talking with people. So collecting that survey, that's what that neighborhood heat survey is for.

And then one other thing I did want to mention, you know, we've been talking about you know using the buildings to you know to have places, cooling stations where people can go, especially in high heat situations. One of the things that we that many of us don't think about is there's the high heat situation in general. There's also the high heat situation caused because of a power outage. Mark was just talking about, you know, the storms we had last night. and so you could you

Mark Partin (27:03.486)
Yes.

Karl McCollester (27:07.064)
We it's only a ninety-three degree day today, but if there are fifteen thousand homes, or in the case of a small town, maybe five hundred homes, that don't have power, well, all of a sudden you now have you know 500 people who normally don't need cooling who are now looking for it. And of course some of those people can, you know, easily drive off to the you know local store or mall or friends' place. So s some of them are gonna figure out themselves. But understanding that not only do you have heat management

When there's a high temperature, but there's also kind of that shoulder of where it could be somewhat hot, but if we have a large power outage, we also need to figure out how to how to help our fellow residents during that time. So again, activating those cooling stations during that time is important. And then from your own standpoint, you know, understanding which of your cooling facilities could survive a larger power outage. So if your entire town's out, who has a generator? Is that only the medical facilities?

facility that can maybe only seat five. is is there a church that has a generator? and that's where you know the other places are probably going to be closed.

y you know, understanding how power outages can affect what's available to your community in a high heat situation can get very important. Especially, you know, we hear all the time now how the high heat situations can even affect power outages themselves. You could have a perfectly clear day and because of overconsumption or you know faulty equipment in the power distributions distribution system, that can impact, you know, and cause an outage and it could be a perfectly clear day.

So working through w what's available and then you know also thinking about using resiliency as a justification to make improvements to your own facilities.

Karl McCollester (28:56.367)
you know, having a generator at City Hall is not just for power outages for the you know municipal operations, but can also be a resiliency aspect that you can get funding for from a resiliency project because it also can then become a cooling center. same thing with solar power. If you can not only have a generator that handles power outages, but you have a large battery pack that can handle cooling because you have solar and you continue to get you know power even in extended power situations.

Again, that's just makes you that much more resilient when these things occur and makes those facilities even more valuable when this kind of situation happens.

Mark Partin (29:34.897)
Absolutely. And and the reality is power outages unfortunately could increase because our consumption of power is dramatically outpacing our ability to produce power. And that that infrastructure is not something that can be built quickly. So you know that's a reality that we're all gonna deal with one way or another. And we have heard, you know, other states over the last decade or so

That have regularly had blackouts during times of extreme heat or cold. So, you know, we need to be aware of it and be prepared for it. So we want to move into the grant segment of our podcast, and we have some grants that can be useful in in situations like these as well as some other opportunities that we have talked about in previous episodes.

Karl McCollester (30:13.933)
Yes. Yes.

Mark Partin (30:30.278)
And the first grant we have here is from the Tomberg Family Foundation. And these grants range in value from five to twenty thousand dollars, and they are available to various organizations nationwide. It's not geographic specific. And they are specifically addressing programs in the area of health, environment, and poverty alleviation. and they have a really good

a website that walks you through how exactly to file a grant application with them. I got stuck on that page earlier myself and was quite impressed with how how helpful that page would be if I were going to apply for a grant. But

Karl McCollester (31:11.45)
Right.

Right. They even had a whole survey thing where you can answer the questions and figure out whether you're eligible based on that. I was very impressed to yes. Well, next up, due July seventh, and again this is for only anybody who happens to be listening from New Jersey, but is resiliency related? resilient New Jersey has a regional assistance program. So again, that's from two hundred K to three hundred fifty K and that's just around these kind of things. What what can you do to improve your resiliency? Now again, that could be flooding resiliency, you know

Mark Partin (31:14.665)
Yes.

Yeah, it's mm-hmm.

Karl McCollester (31:42.309)
other acts but also heat. So if you're in that area encourage you to apply for that.

Mark Partin (31:47.807)
Yes, and the third grant we have today has a deadline of July 10th, and it is the Roy Roy Hunt Foundation Opportunity and Inclusion grants around $50,000 and it specifically addresses minority entrepreneurship programs, health, fresh food access, and leadership programs. So take a look at that and if it fits for you, make a run for it. $50,000 is a nice grant.

Karl McCollester (32:16.131)
Yeah, no kidding.

then July 11th, the Department of State, South Carolina State Department of Al Agriculture has a deadline for South Carolina farmers and foresters around the Helene Hurricane Helene damages. they have a block grant available for farmers and foresters who suffered significant damages. now again, most of our municipalities, you know, this is more of a case of making sure our residents or nearby residents are aware. But some of our municipalities certainly have large forested tracks where.

Where you know they may have had damage and this is a opportunity to recoup some of those damages if it's a place that you've been setting aside for forestry or buffer zone or something like that. So you can look at the Department of Alc Agriculture for that.

Mark Partin (33:01.853)
Yes. And

The next grant we have is from Duke Energy, and if you're in one of their service areas, the Duke Energy Foundation has various grants all year long, not just at one particular season, but they have various grants for municipalities and other organizations to do areas in energy conservation to you know economic development, quality of life programs, and and their dollar amounts vary. So I

encourage you to take look at the Duke Foundation site and get signed up there to apply for some of those grants. And if if you are a municipality and you have a local representative from Duke Energy, reach out to them and they can tell you some more about this as well. They have been very helpful on grants that I've worked on in the past.

Karl McCollester (33:56.205)
Right, absolutely. Yeah. I was about to say so you may even want to ask Mark directly if you have questions on and then finally again kind of far from our southeastern base, but again around energy resilience. the Silicon Valley central electricity authority is doing grant applications. They're looking to do about five or six five hundred K grants for energy resilience as well as electrification.

Mark Partin (34:00.03)
Yes, yes. Mm-hmm.

Mark Partin (34:27.855)
So this has been an interesting and very timely topic. So we hope you have benefited from it. And as we have said, look to the show notes for some of the materials that we have referenced. And we would love to hear from you. Either feedback on this topic or if there are any other topics you would like to learn more about, reach out to us and we'd love to hear from you.

Karl McCollester (34:50.445)
Yes, absolutely. again, the we all we all deal with the heat, some of us better than others. But it's something for all of our municipalities where, you know, we've run into those situations and maybe, you know, gotten through by the skin of our teeth for our residents, but it was a mi miserable time and so anything we can do as a municipality to help you know just lessen the the impact of those

high heat situations on our residents. It just makes it a much more livable place and you know, makes our residents happier, which is, you know, a lot of what we're about. So with that, thank you everybody. please yeah as usual, do the whole like and subscribe thing that we should be asking for. And we'll talk to you next time. Thanks, Mark.

Mark Partin (35:38.155)
All right, thank you.